The technology described herein relates to a diversity receiver
Antenna diversity uses two or more antennas to improve the quality and reliability of a wireless link. Often, especially in urban and indoor environments, there is no clear line-of-sight between transmitter and receiver. Instead, the signal is reflected along multiple paths before finally being received. Each of these bounces can introduce phase shifts, time delays, attenuations and distortions that can destructively interfere with one another at the aperture of the receiving antenna.
Antenna diversity is especially effective at mitigating these multipath situations. This is because multiple antennas offer a receiver several observations of the same signal. Each antenna will experience a different interference environment. Thus, if one antenna is experiencing a deep fade, it is likely that another has a sufficient signal. Collectively such a system can provide a robust link.
Diversity receivers can receive signals from multiple antennas, thereby providing antenna diversity. Some diversity receivers are used to select a best signal path based on received signal strength indicators (RSSI), and an analog switch is then used to pass the chosen signal to the user and block all other signals. When the received signal includes video, the above-described switching can cause discontinuities in the presentation of the video when the diversity receiver switches signal paths.